The Tanglewood Flower Shop: An absolutely perfect uplifting romance

By Lilac Mills

Love can be a thorny business.

When Tanglewood flower shop owner Leanne enters Budding Stars – a floristry TV competition – she’s shocked to make it through to the televised stages where the pressure grows to prove herself a success.

Luckily for Leanne, new Tanglewood park ranger, Rex, is a rose among the thorns as he provides support and friendship that could blossom into something more…

But Rex’s ex-girlfriend appears with some shocking news, and between busy schedules and the occasional mountain rescue, Leanne can’t see how romance could possibly bloom. And with a new job opportunity suddenly sprouting up, will she need to uproot her life and leave Tanglewood entirely?

This uplifting romance is perfect for fans of Daisy James, Holly Martin and Portia Macintosh.

Praise for The Tanglewood Flower Shop

‘An addictive read from the very first page, I really didn’t want to put this down ... full of adorable characters that you really root for, a lovely romance without too much trauma, happiness in book form.’ 5* Reader review

‘I loved this book. It's heartwarming, entertaining and engrossing.’ 5* Reader review

‘This is a story of love but also personal life development and needing the right moments to align to find true happiness. It was such a feel-good and uplifting story.’ Reader review

‘The storyline was refreshing, and something slightly different to what I usually read. A really lovely and lighthearted read that I thoroughly enjoyed.’ 5* Reader review

‘Great story, brilliantly written highly recommend it.’ 5* Reader review

‘With a community feel and likeable characters, this warm romance is a lovely read.’ Reader review

‘I really enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. Great characters and a great plot line. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.’ 5* Reader review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Aug 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781788637404

Lilac Mills

Lilac Mills lives on a Welsh mountain with her very patient husband and incredibly sweet dog, where she grows veggies (if the slugs don’t get them), bakes (badly) and loves making things out of glitter and glue (a mess, usually). She’s been an avid reader ever since she got her hands on a copy of Noddy Goes to Toytown when she was five, and she once tried to read everything in her local library starting with A and working her way through the alphabet. She loves long, hot summer days and cold winter ones snuggled in front of the fire, but whatever the weather she’s usually writing or thinking about writing, with heartwarming romance and happy-ever-afters always on her mind.

Book preview

The Tanglewood Flower Shop by Lilac Mills

Chapter 1

Leanne opened the door and breathed deeply, the alluring scent of a variety of blooms wafting across her face as the air in her shop was disturbed. Beneath the heady perfume of the flowers lay a deeper, richer smell of green things, and earth from the pots and hanging baskets dotted around. She loved those smells, lived for them in fact.

Being in the florist’s shop was like being inside a jewellery box lined with different shades of green: leaf-green satin, forest-green velvet and sage-green damask. The jewels were the flowers themselves – brilliant shades of fiery orange like sparkling amber, reds as bright as the finest rubies, blues ranging from sapphire to lapis lazuli, the purple and violet of tanzanite and amethyst, with the whites of pearls and the yellow of gold.

Add hot pink and some paler blooms into the mix, and the whole shop was a riot of colour that ebbed and flowed with the seasons and was at its best at the flower farm or the wholesaler.

Actually, having to get up to go and purchase the flowers at ridiculous o’clock was the only part of her job that Leanne disliked, although after years of living on her parents’ farm, she would have thought she should be used to getting up before the birds by now. Not that she did it every day, but a couple of times a week was more than enough for her, thank you very much! She mainly sourced her flowers and plants from a nearby flower farm, and sometimes from the garden on the farm where she still lived. For out-of-season or special flowers, she used the wholesaler, which she hated doing but had no choice, though she insisted on visiting it herself to choose her own stock rather than ordering online.

She stepped inside Field Day Flowers, closed the door behind her and headed for the kettle. A cup of coffee was needed before she unloaded the van and tackled today’s orders, she decided grimly. The back of the van was full to bursting with roses. Red ones. One of the most lucrative days of the year was looming, but Leanne viewed it more as an endurance test. She hated Valentine’s Day, and it wasn’t because she lacked a love interest – although it was fair to say there was no romance on her horizon – but because she felt she had little scope for creativity. There was only so much that could be done with a dozen red roses.

She spent the morning making up the bouquets for tomorrow and storing them in the temperature-controlled room out the back. She knew she was lucky to have it; when the butcher’s shop that had been here since her mum was a child started selling wild boar and venison three years ago and business really took off for them, they needed somewhere larger. Their move to new premises around the corner gave Leanne an opportunity to jump in with an offer for this one. The room where the meat had once been stored made a perfect place to keep her flowers, and even the meat hooks came in handy for the hanging baskets.

In fact, the former butcher’s shop made an excellent florist’s. It was just the right size, and she loved the way the shop front angled in a bit so she could put some of her lovely displays outside without blocking the pavement or risk them getting too wet. She made a point of doing a new one every week.

In honour of Valentine’s Day, she had borrowed (though her dad would have something different to say about it if he knew) an ancient bicycle from the depths of one of the farm sheds, spray-painted it red and filled the little basket on the front with a heart-shaped box of chocolates and a bottle of wine – both empty, of course. She’d added sprays of artfully arranged roses and gypsophila, and the cutest teddy bear she could find. Then she’d draped greenery and red ribbon all around and placed a bay tree alongside the bike, which she’d trimmed into a heart shape and dotted with roses. Finally she’d filled the inside of the window with a Cupid’s bow and arrow made from red, white and gold flowers arranged over a hidden frame. Sometimes she recognised how much of an advantage it had been to grow up on a farm with four brothers – she was a dab hand with chicken wire, a soldering iron and a pair of pliers!

Ken, her part-time driver, popped in at ten o’clock to collect the day’s deliveries, and she made a mental note to put aside a small bunch of roses for him to give to his wife. Bless him, he had retired several years ago, but his inadequate pension meant he’d been forced to take on any work he could, and Leanne had been more than happy to ask him if he’d like to drive her van for a couple of hours every day.

It would be more than a couple of hours tomorrow, she estimated, looking at the order book. But for once, the sight of so many orders didn’t fill her with joy.

Her window did, though. She loved making unusual displays, the stranger the better, and she knew that her attempts to brighten up her shop were viewed favourably by the rest of the village.

In fact, the whole village was a chocolate-box affair, with its gurgling river, pretty humpbacked stone bridge, old pubs and equally old shops. Some of the smaller side roads were still cobbled, and the residents had fought long and bitterly to keep them that way. The shops reflected the prettiness of the village too, from the baker selling traditional and unusual loaves, hand-baked on the premises, to the quirky craft shops and the tea shop near the river at the end of the high street.

Talking of the tea shop, Leanne looked up when the door opened to see its owner, Stevie, darting inside.

‘Roses,’ Stevie panted. ‘Fifteen, please,’ she added, placing her hands on the counter and taking big gulps of air.

‘Who’s chasing you?’ Leanne asked drily.

‘No one, but there’s been such a rush on this morning, I haven’t had a minute to myself. With Cassandra being pregnant, I couldn’t ask her to waddle up here – it might take her all day! She’s huge already and she’s got ages to go yet. I keep telling her to take it easy; she needs to give up work, but I think she and Aiden want to install a couple of beehives and set up the pasteurisation thing for the goat’s milk, so she intends to hang on until the last minute.’

‘Let’s hope she doesn’t have it in the middle of your tea shop,’ Leanne joked.

‘Stop it,’ Stevie groaned. ‘I don’t want to tempt fate.’

Stevie might be rushed off her feet, but she was glowing, Leanne thought. Being in love clearly suited her. As did the fresh air of the stables – if you could call the interesting smells around any stable fresh. She had moved in with showjumper Nick shortly after last summer’s ball at The Manor, and was loving every minute of it. Living with Nick, that was, not the stables side of it, although she had confided to Leanne that she was learning to ride, albeit cautiously and with a great deal of clinging onto the horse’s mane and shrieking.

Leanne mentally shook her head. Until Stevie had arrived in Tanglewood, she had been a city girl through and through; now look at her – living in The Furlongs, surrounded by fields and horses. She could never have thought her life would change so radically when she first set foot in her tea shop all those months ago.

Leanne was ready for a change herself, but…

‘Roses?’ Stevie reminded her.

‘Yes, sorry, I’ll sort you some out now. Will buds be OK? If you put them in their vases as soon as you get back, they should be open by tomorrow, but I warn you, they’ll be past their best come Monday.’ That was the problem with hothouse roses: they didn’t last long, only a few days at the most, before they started to look overblown.

‘That’s OK, I’ll be sick of them myself by Sunday evening. I’ll change them on Monday.’ Stevie rooted around in her voluminous handbag, coming up with a paper bag. ‘I thought you might fancy an eclair,’ she said, handing the sweet treat over.

‘Yum.’ Leanne peered inside, her mouth watering at the sight of the chocolatey, creamy goodness within. ‘Have you got time to join me for a coffee?’

‘Sorry, no. I’ve got to get back. It’s Betty’s day off and I’ve left Cassandra on her own.’

Leanne watched her go wistfully. That was the main drawback of being a one-man band – the lack of company during the day. When she got home, there tended to be too much of it, but that was another story. Aside from Ken and those customers who lingered for a chat, she was very much on her own. Sometimes she thought it must be really nice to have a companion to work alongside. OK, not a companion, because she’d be the employer and they’d be the employee, but someone else in the shop who she could bounce ideas off, or even just have a moan to. Preferably someone who understood the floristry business.

Or – and here was an idea – perhaps she could take on an apprentice? She wouldn’t be able to pay them much, but at least it would be a job of sorts. She could train them up, and maybe eventually leave them in charge while she went off and…

And what? What did she need time off for? What was she actually going to do with it? Go shopping? Unlikely. Maybe she could join a class, like yoga, or spin, or have a facial… No, being realistic, she knew she’d never do any of those things. She had enough exercise with the shop and being on her feet all day, and she wasn’t all that bothered about facials. Besides, she knew in her heart that she wouldn’t completely relax if she wasn’t here to supervise. And it wasn’t as though she had a husband or children to occupy her free time. She felt vaguely envious when she thought of her friends Stevie and Tia, both of whom were head over heels in love and planning their respective weddings. Leanne was going to be a bridesmaid at Stevie’s, which was the closest she’d get to a wedding of her own any time soon.

‘Hiya, love,’ a familiar voice called as the postman pushed open the door with his shoulder and placed a handful of letters on the counter.

Leanne smiled and waved as he left, then turned her attention to the post. Flyer, catalogue, spammy pension plan thing – they all went in the bin. The council tax payment request she put to one side, as she did with a beautiful note from a very happy customer (wedding flowers – big job), and she hung on to the floristry magazine. It was usually full of great tips and new designs, and she couldn’t resist a quick flick through its glossy pages.

An article caught her eye.

Budding Stars!

Could you be the floristry star of the future? Have you got it in you to create breathtaking designs? Can you wow! our judges? Do you have what it takes to go all the way?

If you’re frantic about flowers and bonkers about blooms, then this is the show for you.

She scanned further down the page to the small print.

Network UK is seeking florists for a brand-new series, Budding Stars, which will be aired in the summer. The programme will be in a competition format, filmed over ten weeks, with one entrant being eliminated each week.

The winner will get to design the floral display for the main gate to the Chelsea Flower Show.

To enter, you must be eighteen or over. The competition is open to both amateurs and those who work in the floristry business but who have not previously won an award for floristry and do not hold any qualification in the subject.

Wow! The Chelsea Flower Show was the epitome of everything floral and gardening. To exhibit there was a prize indeed. Feeling a flutter of excitement in her chest, Leanne turned the computer on in the back office, clicked on the website mentioned in the article and had a good look. To apply, all she needed to do was fill in a form.

Admittedly, it was quite a detailed form, and it took her all afternoon, in between serving customers and putting the finishing touches to the orders for tomorrow. After she’d completed it, she read through the reams of information about disclosure clauses (eh?), availability for filming, and so on; then with her heart in her mouth, she pressed send.

She knew there was only a teeny-weeny chance she’d get through the first round of selections, and she made a promise to herself not to get too excited.

But she couldn’t help feeling a thrill all the same. This opportunity might be just what she’d been looking for.

Chapter 2

‘Rex! Rex!’ yelled a voice from behind him, and Rex turned to see a springy Dobermann bounding towards him along the path, all floppy ears and waggy tail, with its tongue lolling out. It bounced to a stop, scattering small stones.

‘Sorry, really sorry. Not everyone likes dogs.’ The Dobermann’s owner hurried up, panting as hard as his pet.

Actually, Rex did like dogs. Well-behaved dogs and well-trained dogs, which this one clearly wasn’t. It also didn’t help his mood that he’d just discovered he had the same name as a daft Dobermann.

‘He’s only a puppy, nine months old. He’ll settle down soon,’ the man said.

Yeah, like in a couple of years maybe, Rex thought, as the dog went into puppy pose, his front legs resting on the ground and his waggling backside up in the air, before leaping to his feet and darting off when his owner made a lunge for him.

‘Not got a dog yourself?’ the stranger asked, looking around as if he thought Rex might have hidden a mutt in the heather.

‘No,’ Rex said, his soft Scottish burr drawing out the vowel. His beloved bitch Star had recently passed away, at around the same time as his long-term girlfriend had upped and left. They said things happened in threes, so when the third of his misfortunes arrived barely a week later, he was sort of expecting it. He’d loved that job, too…

Never mind, he’d probably grow to love this one; he was halfway there already. It was just a pity it was so far away from home.

The man stuck out his right hand, intruding into his thoughts. ‘I’m Arthur, and this is Rex.’ He nodded at the dog, which had reappeared at the man’s side.

‘Rex,’ Rex said, taking the man’s hand and giving it a firm shake.

‘Yeah, Rex,’ Arthur agreed. ‘It’s a grand name for a dog.’

‘No, I mean my name is Rex.’

‘Oh? Oh! Ha, ha. Well I never. Rex, meet Rex.’

Rex the man leaned down to pat Rex the dog, who had calmed down enough to sidle up to this interesting new human for a sniff. He felt a familiar pull on his heartstrings. Star’s passing had left a huge hole in his life – possibly even more so than his girlfriend’s leaving – but he wasn’t yet ready to give his love to another dog. It was too soon; his emotions were too raw. Besides, no dog could ever replace Star. She had been one of a kind. He’d had her since she was eight weeks old, and she’d gone everywhere with him. He’d chosen his profession based on the fact that he could take her to work. He’d even taken her to university with him (she’d had to stay at his digs on the days he had lectures), and she used to like nothing better than accompanying him on his field days. She loved it all – woodland, heathland, the high mountains, the wetlands; as long as she was with him, she was happy.

He was lost without her, as if an essential part of him was missing.

‘Lovely up here, innit?’ Arthur said. ‘I’ve been walking these hills since I was a lad, rain or shine. Always had dogs, see, and they need walking every day.’ He stared out over the valley below, and Rex did the same.

This Welsh mountain range wasn’t as impressive as those of Rex’s Scottish homeland, but it did have a certain charm, although he was under no illusion that small mountains meant safer mountains. In fact, the smaller ones tended to attract more casual visitors, as he’d found out. On a dry Sunday, the main track up Pen y Fan, the highest peak in South Wales, was akin to a supermarket on Christmas Eve. Last Sunday, which had happened to be dry, sunny and Easter, had apparently attracted a record number of visitors. Some of them had been dressed for it, in hiking boots, fleeces and waterproofs, but others had worn T-shirts and soft pumps, clearly unaware that even on a good day, conditions underfoot could be muddy, rugged and slippery. The weather at the top could turn in an instant from warm and bright to sharp biting winds and lowering cloud.

Mountains certainly weren’t to be taken lightly, and that was where Rex came in; part of his job was to educate and advise. Thinking of this very thing, he checked Arthur out, relieved to see that he had a sturdy pair of well-worn boots on his feet and several layers of clothing showing through his partly unzipped waterproof jacket.

They went their separate ways, Arthur up and Rex down. He’d come out early, as he had done every day of the two weeks since he’d relocated to Tanglewood, trying to familiarise himself with the land. He intended to know every inch of his patch by the end of the month, however exhausted he felt – walking for twenty or thirty miles a day took it out of you, but it was the best way to get to know a place.

Right now, though, he was ready for lunch. Breakfast had been a ham-filled bun and a flask of coffee, eaten perched on a spectacular slab of rock that jutted out of the top of one of the smaller peaks. It was about the same length and width as a diving board; in fact, that was exactly what the locals called it! Rex had sat on the edge of it, his legs dangling over the side, perched several hundred feet above an almost sheer drop. If he fell now, he’d thought, it would take more than a plaster and a bit of Germolene to put him back together again.

As he strode back to the village, heather and tufts of grass gave way to enclosed fields surrounded by hedgerows. It was almost lambing season, and the fields were full of pregnant ewes munching contentedly on the new growth. The bit of sun last weekend (Easter weekend and it hadn’t rained – a miracle!) had encouraged fresh green shoots to spring up, and the leaves on the trees were starting to unfurl.

He stopped to touch a dangling catkin, smiling at the unmistakable sign of spring. A few wild primroses were scattered at the foot of the dry stone wall, and he was careful not to tread on them. As he walked on, he made a mental note to check the funding situation for this particular path. It was obviously well used and was starting to degrade in places. He wanted to repair any damage now, and not wait until the job became a major one.

A gentle bend in the path brought the now familiar view of Tanglewood into sight. He’d not explored this particular route before, but he had checked on the map before he’d set out this morning and knew it looped around to bring him back to the village from the north-west. Besides, he’d know Tanglewood anywhere, with the ribbon of river running alongside it, the small stone bridge that he could just make out if he squinted, and the crossroads formed by the intersection of the two main streets. The village was nestled at the bottom of a U-shaped valley with the steep slopes of the mountains rising either side, and surrounded by lush farmland.

He had to admit, it was very picturesque, reminding him of a miniature Switzerland, but with rows of stone cottages instead of chalets. Tracing the little streets with his eye, he counted the houses until he came to the one he lived in. From here, it was nothing more than a speck, but he was convinced he could see the ivy growing around the door. He was renting it for now, although if this move worked out and he decided to stay, he might see if he could purchase it once the money came through from the sale of the house in Scotland that he still part-owned with his ex.

Even in his own mind, Rex hesitated to use Jules’s name. If he thought of her at all that is, because he was actively trying not to. It wasn’t that he was heartbroken (he was heartsore, but his heart wasn’t shattered – there was a difference), it was just that her departure had been so unexpected. There they’d been, bumbling along – quite happily, he’d thought. Then she’d dropped the bombshell that their relationship wasn’t going anywhere and she was moving out.

Looking back, he knew he should have realised. The pair of them had become more like a couple of lodgers than romantic lovers. Maybe it was to be expected when you were with someone for any length of time – perhaps you did lose the spark. How sad if that were true, he mused. During the weeks between the split and moving to Wales, he had found plenty of time to reflect, and had been forced to admit that he was equally to blame. Maybe he should have made more of an effort, wooed her more, made her feel special.

He had also realised something else, which had come as a bit of a surprise to him: that perhaps it was because he hadn’t loved her enough that he hadn’t made the effort in the first place. After the first flush of passion had worn off, they hadn’t had a great deal in common. They’d simply drifted along like two pieces of flotsam on the same tide. Even moving in together had been a matter of finances; their decision to buy had been based on wanting some kind of return on their investment. They’d

Reviews for The Tanglewood Flower Shop

[Corradino DiBiase · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a fun and light enjoyable read that was perfect to read on a rainy day!